Howdy, friends.  Gather ’round and hear about a fluffy little owl.  The morepork, named for its distinct call and enthusiasm for barbeque, is a small owl native to New Zealand.  The most interesting thing I learned about this week’s subject is that it was for hundreds of years considered to be in the same species as the Australian Boobook and its Tasmanian counterpart, and it wasn’t until genetic testing was conducted that it was determined to be its own species.  I wasn’t able to find a precise date, but the International Ornithological Congress recognized the morepork as distinct from the Tasmanian boobook in 2022.   

The morepork lives on both main islands of New Zealand as well as several smaller islands in both coniferous and deciduous forests.  It will leave near clearings as long as there are sufficient trees to roost in and hunt from.  Because of how similar it is to the boobook, a couple of male moreporks were released in Norfolk Island to provide a mate for the last surviving Norfolk Island boobook owl in 1987.  The effort was successful and gave rise to a hybrid boobook-morepork population there which still exists.  

Following is an excerpt from nzbirdsonline dot com, discussing the wide range of nesting options this week’s bird finds acceptable: “Nests are usually placed within cavities of live or dead trees, within broken logs, in a tree fork or within a hole in an earth bank, including in petrel burrows. They also nest in epiphytes, in nest boxes put up for other species, or in a simple scrape on the ground under tree fern fronds, a rock, or among the roots of trees – anywhere that provides a dark hideaway. The 1-3 eggs are incubated by the female only. Incubation takes about 25 days, and chicks fledge when about 7 weeks old. Both adults feed the young.”

On that note, the word of the week is “epiphyte,” which is plant or plant like organism that lives on another plant, like, for example, an orchid.  

Moreporks are almost always strictly nocturnal, although they will wait out the night and hunt at dawn or dusk if the night is too dark.  Like most owls, it has excellent sight and hearing, as well as serrated wings that allow it to fly silently.  The morepork has short and broad wings that allow it to be very maneuverable while flying in dense forests.  The morepork uses its sweet-ass owl powers to feed on a wide variety of prey including large invertebrates like beetles, moths and grasshoppers, and vertebrates such as other birds, rats and mice.   The species is considered non-threatened due to its large range and large, stable population.  Have a good weekend, everyone.